Perception

18 Nov Perception

Take a look at the picture above. What do you see? Did you see an image of a devil’s face? Or perhaps you might have seen an image of a group of women hanging out in a room together. Both of these images are in the picture above, but depending on how you looked at the picture, you either saw the devil’s face or the group of women.

Isn’t it funny how you can look at one picture and see two completely different images? How you perceived these images resulted in whether you saw one image over the other. Perception is important, but it isn’t just important in determining whether you saw a devil or women; it just so happens to be an essential and constant part of our lives. It plays a major role in how we navigate through our lives on a daily basis. We are constantly taking in information. The auditory, visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory cues that surround us from day to day help to shape what we think about and how we behave in this world.

Daily we are confronted with an array of experiences. We have to interact and deal with other people, and we have to deal with unforeseen circumstances. Life is unpredictable and sometimes we run into unfavorable situations, but that doesn’t mean that we have to walk around only seeing the bad things about these less than desirable conditions. Like I’ve said before, there is good in every situation, you just have to find it. You loosing your job just means that you have a chance to find something even bigger and better than where you were at before. You breaking up with your significant other just means that you don’t have to waste anymore time in a relationship that wasn’t right for you. And you falling on hard times financially just means that you’ll have more time to appreciate the simpler things in life, which is something that we should do more but often times fail to do.

And even if you can’t find the good in your bad situation, chances are that if you take a few minutes to really assess the situation you’ll end up discovering that that situation is not as terrible as you’re making it out to be because things really are never as bad as they seem. Some of the curve balls life throws our way really are difficult to deal with and finding the good in that situation may be more difficult than finding the good in just a minor snag or hiccup. The real goal in these instances should be for you to try and find a way to look at the situation with a little less horror than you did when you first came across it. And if you have difficulty seeing the situation for what it really is, talking to an objective someone who is outside of the situation may just help you to get some extra perspective so that you can see the reality of your problem. Or your solution to seeing things more clearly may be as simple as allowing for some time to pass before deciding to take a look at the situation again. Trying not to see the bad when it seems like there’s nothing but around you is a difficult thing to do, but it’s a completely possible task for you to achieve once you are able to take a new perspective.

Now before we finish up here, let’s go back to the image at the top of this post one more time. When you first saw it you didn’t make the decision to see one version of the picture over the other. Your mind chose it for you. But once you found out that there was more than one image, you could then choose which image you wanted to focus your attention on. If you wanted to see the devil you could change the way you perceived the picture and see the devil. And on the other hand, if you wanted to see the women then you could change your perception to see the women instead of the devil.

This process doesn’t only just work for the image above positive thinker; you can use it when you have to take on those unexpected curve balls. Unlike with the picture, you start out knowing that there is more than one way for you to look at an undesirable situation. You can either take the time to find the good in the not so good situation, or you can choose to focus only on the bad and not see the good. And because you already know the two ways that you can perceive bad situations, you also have the option to choose whatever perception you want to use. You may have started out seeing the bad, but because you know the good option exists, you have the capability to switch over to that better way of looking at your problem.

Positive thinker you don’t want to walk around seeing the devil when you know a happier image exists, so don’t choose it. Choose the happier version!